Hypnotizability, alterations in consciousness, and
other variables as predictors of performance in a ganzfeld psi
task.

Abstract:

We examined how hypnotizability, dissociation, alterations in
consciousness, belief in success, and previous psi experiences related
to performance in a ganzfeld psi task. High (n = 14) and low (n = 12)
hypnotizables participated in 2 sessions. The first included measures of
dissociation and alterations in consciousness during ganzfeld, whereas
the second consisted of a telepathy task with the percipient again in a
ganzfeld setting. We hypothesized that high hypnotizability (perhaps
interacting with dissociation), alterations in consciousness, expecting
a successful psi performance, and previous psi experiences would predict
successful psi performance. Percipients' belief of their own
success in the experiment and their reports of previous psi experiences
correlated significantly with psi z scores, but contrary to our
hypothesis hypnotizability overall correlated negatively with
performance on the psi task. However, psi z scores correlated strongly
to moderately with experiencing an altered state and other changes in
consciousness, but only for high hypnotizables. Although we did not find
an overall interaction between hypnotizability and dissociation, we
observed that at least a subgroup of high dissociative, high
hypnotizables seemed to be accurate when they followed their
"hunches" rather than their imagery.

Organization: Parapsychological Association; American Society for Psychical Research

Geographic:

Geographic Scope: United States Geographic Code: 1USA United States

Accession Number:

280004571

Full Text:

The sensory homogenization procedure known as ganzfeld remains one
of the most widely used techniques in parapsychological research (Bem
& Honorton, 1994; Milton & Wiseman, 1999; Storm, Tressoldi,
& Di Risio, 2010). It has been thought to facilitate the anomalous
process of information or energy transfer known as psi (Bem &
Honorton, 1994). Why ganzfeld may facilitate psi is a subject of debate,
but a frequent hypothesis is that it induces a psi-conducive state of
consciousness (e.g., Tart, 1978). Exposure to ganzfeld may produce
various alterations in consciousness such as vivid imagery, mild time
distortions, and alterations in emotion and somatosensory experiences
(Tsuji, Hayashibe, Hara, & Kato, 2004; Wackermann, Putz, &
Allefeld, 2008; Vaitl et al., 2005). A variety of these alterations have
correlated with psi performance (e.g., time distortion, body awareness
changes, see Alvarado, 1998; Palmer, 1978). Perhaps the most consistent
results were obtained by Sargent and colleagues across a number of
studies in which performance in psi tasks correlated with self-reported
shifts in states of consciousness (e.g., Sargent, 1980), but there was
controversy regarding the quality of this research (Blackmore, 1987;
Harley & Matthews, 1987; Sargent, 1987). Nonetheless, Palmer,
Khamashta, and Israelson (1979) found a similar correlation between
altered states of consciousness and performance, and Carpenter (2004)
reported that reports of self-transcendence correlated with success in a
ganzfeld task. A few studies have found unexpected negative correlations
between psi and self-reported altered states (e.g., Parker, 1975).
Palmer (1978) noted that these negative correlations tended to occur in
studies with overall negative results, hypothesizing that altered states
might be more relevant to psi magnitude than direction. A study in a
non-peer-reviewed publication reported that score-hitting was
significantly better in a ganzfeld (33.3%) than a nonganzfeld condition
(18.5%) but that ad hoc measures of alterations in time and body sense
did not correlate with psi performance (da Silva, Pilato, & Hiraoka,
2003).

An important consideration is that not everyone experiences
noticeable alterations in consciousness during ganzfeld, but individual
differences in responsiveness remain poorly understood (Wackermann et
al., 2008). The most comprehensive and updated meta-analysis on ganzfeld
psi research found clear support for anomalous cognition in ganzfeld and
that selected participants (e.g., practitioners of meditation and
believers in psi), relative to unselected ones, had a performance
advantage only in the ganzfeld condition (Storm et al., 2010). This
finding provides strong support to study individual responsiveness to
ganzfeld stimulation and the potential mechanisms that may explain
success in psi tasks.

Three main hypotheses have been posited to explain successful
psihitting in ganzfeld: the noise-reduction model (Braud, 1978;
Honorton, 1977), increase in expectancy effects (Braud, 1978), and that
alterations in consciousness, especially among high hypnotizables, may
induce an experience of interconnectedness with everything that may be
conducive to psi (Cardena, 2005, 2010). Consistent especially with the
first and third theories is literature supporting a link between
successful psi and a variety of altered states and induction procedures
that may produce them, such as meditation (Luke, 2011).

According to the noise-reduction model, the weak psi signal is more
likely to breach consciousness when other competing information is
reduced (cf. Baars, 2001). In ganzfeld, visual and auditory stimulation
is maintained at a constant level and together with a relaxation
induction it reduces sensory stimulation. According to the expectancy
hypothesis, ganzfeld may work because experimenters and participants
believe in it, a kind of placebo effect. Smith, Wiseman, Machin, Harris,
and Joiner (1997) found a moderately strong correlation between expected
performance and actual performance on a coin toss task (but see also
Smith & Sawa, 2008). In addition, a few studies have manipulated
expectation of success and found differences in performance between
high- and low-expectancy groups (e.g., Taddonio, 1975). In a study by
Honorton (1969) participants performed better on a psi task following
hypnotic induction relative to a control condition, but they also had
greater expectations of success during hypnosis. Thus, the results of
his study could fit into any of the noise-reduction, expectation, or
altered-state hypotheses. It is of course possible that these factors
interact with each other. Hypnosis procedures may work because they
induce alterations in consciousness, reduce sensory stimulation, and/or
boost people's expectations about psi.

Hypnotizability, Dissociation, and Psi

The monotonous external environment makes ganzfeld a favorable
procedure for internally directed attention (Putz, Braeunig, &
Wackermann, 2006). An accompanying relaxation instruction makes it
similar to a hypnotic induction, which typically involves suggestions
for focusing attention and relaxing the body and the mind. The
phenomenological effects of hypnosis (Cardena, 2005), but only for high
hypnotizables (Cardena, Lehmann, Jonsson, Terhune, & Faber, 2007),
are similar to those reported in ganzfeld (Rock, Abbott, Childargushi,
& Kiehne, 2008; Tsuji et al., 2004; Wackermann, Putz, Buchi,
Strauch, & Lehmann, 2002). Hypnosis has been associated with
successful performance on psi tasks, although an experimenter psi-effect
may account for a large portion of the variance (Stanford & Stein,
1994). In sum, ganzfeld and hypnosis are akin as procedures, the
phenomenological effects they induce, and perhaps their purported
influence on psi. We therefore might expect a great deal of overlap in
individual responsiveness to ganzfeld and hypnosis procedures, and that
individual differences in hypnotic responsiveness may account for a
significant proportion of the variance in ganzfeld psi outcomes.

Hypnotizability, the ability to respond to suggestions following a
hypnotic induction, has rarely been measured in parapsychological
research, but it has correlated with performance in some psi experiments
(Palmer, 1978). Two studies conducted after Palmer's review failed
to find a significant correlation between hypnotizability and psi. The
first (May, Banyai, Vassy, & Faith, 2005) was a pilot experiment
with some significant limitations in the psi procedure (May, personal
communication, 2008). In the second (Sondow, 1986), not reported either
in a peer-reviewed journal, hypnotizability did not predict performance
in a ganzfeld psi-task, but no descriptive data on hypnotizability nor
on its association with psi scoring were provided, making it impossible
for the reader to evaluate the results thoroughly. A more recent study
(Tressoldi & Del Prete, 2007) reported significant psi scoring in
the first of two sessions and significant correlations between psi
performance and the personality traits of absorption and
transliminality, the first of which has been found to correlate with
hypnotizability in a number of studies (Roche & McConkey, 1990).

Furthermore, despite the similarities between ganzfeld and hypnosis
there is no guarantee that all of those who are highly hypnotizable will
be also highly responsive to ganzfeld. This issue is related to the
contemporary debate regarding heterogeneity in the high-hypnotizable
population (McConkey & Barnier, 2004). There are a number of
theories (e.g., Barber, 1999) and studies (e.g., Terhune & Cardena,
2010) proposing that high hypnotizables who are or are not also highly
dissociative differ in important ways. In the context of parapsychology
research (Cardena, Marcusson-Clavertz, & Wasmuth, 2009),
hypnotizability alone did not predict performance on a precognition
task, but when participants were also blocked according to high or low
dissociation there was a significant difference between groups.
Accordingly, if hypnotizability is used as a predictor of psi
performance, dissociation and alterations in consciousness might be
mediating or moderating variables.

Belief in Experimental Success and Reported Previous Psi
Experiences

The so-called sheep-goat effect proposes that belief that a psi
experiment will be successful, and more particularly that the respondent
will be successful in the specific study in question, correlates with
psihitting. A meta-analysis showing a small significant effect across
various studies supports this effect (Lawrence, 1993). Reported prior
experience of putative psi phenomena has also been found to relate to
success in ganzfeld psi tasks (Honorton, 1997; but see also Milton &
Wiseman, 1999). It is relevant in this context that hypnotizability and
dissociation correlate positively with reports of psi and anomalous
experiences, especially when the traits occur jointly (Pekala &
Cardena, 2000).

Our Study

This study evaluated five hypotheses concerning our dependent
variable, the participants' scoring of a target and three decoys in
a ganzfeld telepathy protocol:

(1) Believing that one will be successful in the psi task will
correlate positively with psi performance.

(3) High hypnotizables will score significantly, better than low
hypnotizables.

(4) Dissociation will mediate or moderate the effect of
hypnotizability in psi scoring.

(5) Alterations in consciousness will be significantly related to
performance in the psi task and to hypnotizability.

We used multivariate analyses to evaluate the joint and independent
contribution of the variables in our hypotheses.

Method

Participants

Percipients. We recruited individuals from a sample (N = 332; 64%
females, mean age = 25.26, SD = 6.94) to which we administered a
standardized measure of hypnotizability. Participants were undergraduate
or recently graduated students in different disciplines, psychology
being the most common. We then approached those who were high or low in
hypnotizability and asked them if they would like to participate in a
further experiment, and approximately 50% of those contacted agreed to
participate. There were 4 males and 11 females among the high
hypnotizables (highs), and 4 males and 10 females among the low
hypnotizables (lows). The mean age was 22 years for highs (SD = 5.04)
and 23.14 for lows (SD = 3.21). Each of the 29 participants completed a
measure of dissociation and was designated as either high (n = 15) or
low (n = 14) in dissociation. This yielded the following four groups;
low dissociative/low hypnotizables (henceforth LD lows, n = 8), high
dissociative/low hypnotizables (HD lows, n = 6), low dissociative/high
hypnotizables (LD highs, n = 6), and high dissociative/high
hypnotizables (HD highs, n = 9). Three participants (1 LD low, 1 HD low,
and 1 LD high) completed the first session but dropped out from the
second session, thus leaving us with a final sample of 26.

Agents. Each of the 26 percipients was asked to bring a person with
whom he or she had a close connection to serve as an agent (12 males and
14 females, mean age = 23.27, SD = 5.44). A majority of percipient-agent
pairs were friends or acquaintances from the same class, and informal
questioning revealed that often there was not a close emotional link
within the pair. Four of the pairs were in a relationship and one pair
was formed by relatives.

Experimenters. The roles of each experimenter are described in the
Procedures section. Both authors/experimenters are generally supportive
of the psi hypothesis about a number of phenomena, including telepathy,
and have had direct or indirect experiences that could be interpreted as
psi.

Measures

All of the questionnaires and scales used have good psychometric
properties. The Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) is a self-report
measure of dissociative experiences with 28 items (Bernstein &
Putnam, 1986; Carlson & Putnam, 1993), and the Swedish version, the
S-DES, also has good psychometric properties (Ktrlin, Edman, &
Nyback, 2007). Respondents indicate how often they have experienced each
event on an 11-point scale from 0 to 100 percent. The mean of all
ratings constitutes the individual outcome measure. Participants were
designated as high (or low) in dissociation if their scores were above
(or below) a cutoff value of 20, following various studies that suggest
that the majority of people (that is, psychologically healthy
individuals and those with nondissociative symptomatology) typically
score less than 20 in this measure (for a review, see Cardena, 2008).
The scale had good reliability in this sample (Cronbach's a = .93,
M= 20.16, SD= 11.76).

The Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility (HGSHS; Shor
& Orne, 1962) is a group measure of responsiveness to hypnotic
suggestions or hypnotizability. Participants indicate whether they
responded to a given suggestion, and the scale consists of 12 items for
which the score is the sum of all responses. Respondents that scored
from 0 to 3 were designated as low hypnotizables, and those that scored
from 9 to 12 were designated as high hypnotizables, the typical way of
classifying hypnotizability in the literature.

The Phenomenology of Consciousness Inventory (PCI; Pekala, 1991) is
a questionnaire about subjective experience completed in reference to a
preceding stimulus condition. Each of the 53 items provides two opposite
statements separated by a seven-point Likert-type scale. The PCI
consists of two forms with the same items in alternate order and
assesses 12 major dimensions of consciousness and 14 subdimensions. The
dimensions (and subdimensions) are: positive affect (joy, sexual
excitement, and love), negative affect (anger, sadness, and fear),
altered experience (body image, time sense, perception, and meaning),
visual imagery (amount and vividness), attention (direction and
absorption), self-awareness, altered state, internal dialogue,
rationality, volitional control, memory, and arousal. Cronbach's a
indicated good reliability with our sample ([alpha] = .82 for Form 1,
and a = .74 for Form 2).

A psi questionnaire was developed for our study. It consists of
demographic questions and three additional items addressing
respondents' attitude to and experiences of purported psi
phenomena. The first item requires respondents to indicate how likely
they think it is that the overall experiment will succeed in eliciting
telepathy (henceforth "belief in experiment success"). The
second asks how likely respondents think it is that they themselves
(i.e., the percipient-agent pair) will succeed in eliciting telepathy in
their own trial (henceforth "belief in individual success").
Each item is answered by marking a cross on a visual analog scale
(0-100%). The third item requires respondents to report whether they
have had prior psi experiences ("yes" or "no").

Setup

The auditory homogeneity was created by playing "pink
noise" (i.e., noise distributed uniformly by octave throughout the
audio spectrum, which sounds like the "static" between radio
stations) through a set of headphones. Each participant adjusted the
volume individually at the onset of the ganzfeld session, which remained
fixed throughout the session. The visual stimuli consisted of two 40 W
desk-lamps providing a red light at a distance of 60 cm. To ensure
visual homogeneity, participants wore taped anatomically shaped halves
of ping-pong balls (i.e., acetate hemispheres) over their eye orbits.
The relaxation induction consisted of a recorded female voice giving
suggestions to tense and then relax various parts of the body. The rooms
that were used for the telepathy task were in separate buildings, and
the percipients' room was sound attenuated.

An automated ganzfeld procedure was used for this study. A java
program was responsible for randomization, communication between
agent-percipient computers, and recording of information. The program
employs a random number generator known as SecureRandom and a built-in
media player. The random number generator was tested before the
experiment by running numerous simulations of distributions, none of
which deviated from randomness. First, the program randomly chooses and
presents the target clip on the agent computer screen. At the end of the
ganzfeld session, it transmits the information to the percipient
computer, which presents each of the four clips from the target set in a
random order. The program requires the percipient to provide a unique
rating for each of the four clips on a scale from 0 to 100. Immediate
feedback is given after the ratings have been submitted. The pool
consisted of 116 dynamic clips in 29 fixed sets that have previously
been used in psi experiments (e.g., Roe, Sherwood, Farrell, Sawa, &
Baker, 2006).

Procedure

High- and low-hypnotizable individuals had been previously screened
by E. C. or another hypnotist with the HGSHS in groups of about 20 to
40, which is a common range for this measure. They were then asked to
participate in two individual sessions each. Approximately 50% of those
contacted agreed to do the experiment some 2-4 months after the initial
hypnosis session (see Figure 1). The first session, conducted by D. C.,
was presented as a relaxation and awareness exercise. Participants
completed a ganzfeld condition and a control (i.e., sitting quietly with
closed eyes in a dark room) in a counterbalanced order. Each condition
started with 10 min 30 s of relaxation instructions including looped
water waves as background sound. Subsequently, participants provided
thinking-out-loud reports while they experienced the ganzfeld or control
condition for 20 min. Participants then completed a behavioral task
related to mind-wandering during 7 min of the ganzfeld or control
conditions. The mind-wandering and thinkingout-loud data will be
reported elsewhere as they were part of a different project
(Marcusson-Clavertz, Terhune, & Cardena, under review). After each
condition was completed, participants completed the PCI in reference to
it.

D. C. described the second session as a telepathy task, and each
participant was encouraged to bring a person emotionally close to them.
Participants received the S-DES, which they were asked to complete
before the second session. A few participants forgot to bring the S-DES
and instead completed it at the onset of the second session.

The second session started with participants arriving to the room
that was to be used as the percipient room. They were greeted by D. C.,
who described the ganzfeld procedure and its generally positive results.
Then they all walked to the second building to meet with E. C. and visit
the agent room. Participants received refreshments and instructions, and
were encouraged to remain open to any experience or impulse they may
have and to remain focused on their experiences and, in the case of the
agents, the video, rather than trying to use their logic or critical
reasoning in the experiment. Then the percipients and D. C. returned to
the ganzfeld room to start the task. Each participant completed the psi
questionnaire, and then D. C. and E. C. synchronized the procedures with
a phone call and started the autoganzfeld. In the first phase,
percipients and agents listened to the same 10 min 30 s relaxation tape
to induce a more similar experience in both. In the second phase, the
agents watched a randomly chosen 1-min video clip repeatedly for 20 min.
Meanwhile, the percipients provided thinking-out-loud reports during
ganzfeld. As the sending phase was completed, the percipient computer
presented four randomly ordered video clips. Percipients were instructed
to rate each clip on the basis of how likely it was to be the target,
and they were encouraged to do this by comparing each clip with their
ganzfeld experience. After all clips had been played at least once,
percipients rated each of the four clips and submitted the answer, and
then immediate feedback was given by the computer. All participants and
experimenters reunited and shared the results, with the experimenters
mentioning that regardless of the results the participants had provided
very valuable data and that the presence of psi cannot be determined by
the outcome of a single session, whether positive or negative.

All participants provided informed consent. The experimenters
remained masked about percipients' level of hypnotizability and
dissociation until all data were collected. Percipients were compensated
with a cinema ticket for each of their two sessions, whereas agents
received one cinema ticket for their single session. Pairs that scored a
hit on the psi task were compensated with two additional cinema tickets,
a reward they were not told of in advance (in line with psi-mediated
instrumental response, Stanford, 1990; personal communication, 2009).
Participants did not receive any other form of compensation nor were
they fulfilling any course requirement.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Analyses

Following convention, the number of correctly identified targets
(direct hits) was used as the outcome measure of psi in the overall
sample (MCE = 0.25). For the remaining analyses related to
hypotheses-testing we used the more sensitive z scores as the DV
(Stanford & Mayer, 1974; Stanford & Sargent, 1983). A z score
(hereafter termed "psi z score") was calculated by subtracting
the mean score of all four ratings from the target score and then
dividing this value by the SD for all four ratings. Thus, MCE = 0 if the
null hypothesis is true.

An ANCOVA was conducted for comparisons across groups.

ANCOVAs have frequently been used in both experimental and
nonexperimental designs (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007), and although
they are only sensitive to linear relationships, they can increase the
precision of the analysis (Keppel, 1982). All ANCOVA assumptions were
satisfied according to the guidelines of Tabachnick and Fidell (2007).

Pearson product-moment correlations were used for correlating PCI
scores from the first ganzfeld session with performance on the psi task
in the second session. Within-subjects designs can suffer from biases
related to order-of-testing (Poulton, 1973), which can reduce validity
despite the use of counterbalancing. We therefore tested if
order-of-condition (ganzfeld or control first) from the first session
had an impact on ganzfeld PCI outcomes.

None of the 12 ANCOVAs with hypnotizability and dissociation as
IVs, order of conditions as covariate, and each of the PCI major
dimensions as DVs yielded an effect for order-of-condition (Fs <
3.3). We therefore report the correlations between PCI dimensions and
psi z scores as they are, without controlling for order of conditions.

Product moment correlations and t tests were computed for other
analyses; Mann-Whitney U tests (Z statistic) and Spearman's rank
correlations were used if parametric assumptions were violated. All
analyses related to our hypotheses were two-tailed with [alpha] = .05.

Results

Overall Psi

Evaluating overall psi was not a target of this process-oriented
research, but we calculated it nonetheless. Participants correctly
identified the target in 7 out of 26 trials (27%), which does not
deviate from MCE (p = .485, one-tailed). There were 8 second-ranks, 6
third-ranks and 5 fourthranks. Although there was a tendency for a
correlation between percipients' age and psi z score, r(24) = .34,
p = .09, this correlation was likely caused by an outlier. Removing it
yielded a nonsignificant correlation, r(23) = .27, p = .19. No other age
or gender variable correlated with psi z score or hypnotizability
(p's >. 1), and they were therefore not included in the
remaining analyses.

Expectations of Success and Prior Psi Experiences

Correlations between psi z scores and expectations of success were
computed for both percipients and agents. Because there were two
similarworded questions (belief in experiment success and belief in
individual success), a Bonferroni correction was used (adj. [alpha] =
.025). Participants had a moderate belief in experiment success (M =
41%, SD = 19), and individual success (M = 44%, SD = 22), and
percipients and agents did not significantly differ in their
expectations. There was a moderate correlation between percipients'
belief in individual success and actual performance, r(24) = .50, p =
.01, and a nonsignificant positive correlation between their performance
and their belief in experiment success, r(24) = .26, p = .21. As for the
agents, correlations between expectations and performance were close to
zero (p's >.7).

Prior psi experiences were reported by 54% of the percipients and
77% of the agents. Percipients who reported previous psi had a positive
psi z score (M = 0.32, SD = 0.71), whereas the remaining percipients had
a negative psi z score (M= -0.27, SD = 0.89). This difference was
significant (z = 2.06, p = .040). As for agents, there was no
significant difference between those who reported previous psi
experiences (M = 0.18, SD = 0.84) and those who did not (M = -0.38, SD =
0.77; z = 1.16, p = .25). No further analyses were done with the agents.

We then computed correlations for high and low hypnotizables
separately. Table 1 shows the correlation matrix between the variables.
Not surprisingly, beliefs about the success of the experiment and
individual success were strongly correlated overall. Belief in
individual success correlated with psi z scores for both groups. In
contrast, prior psi experiences correlated with psi z scores only among
high hypnotizables. There was no correlation between belief in
individual success and prior psi experiences.

Hypnotizability and Dissociation

The descriptive data for each group are given in Table 2. All
groups had psi z scores close to zero, but LD highs had a noticeable
negative score.

Dissociation did not correlate with psi z scores either by using
mean scores (see Table 1) or groups in the ANCOVA, F(1,20) = 1.01, p =
.326, [[eta].sup.2.sub.p] = .05, although HD individuals had a slightly
positive psi z score and LD a slightly negative one. Neither was there a
significant interaction between hypnotizability and dissociation,
F(1,20) = 1.47, p = .240, [[eta].sup.2.sub.p] = .07. The two covariates
were positively related to psi z scores, confirming the separate
analyses in the preceding section: F(1,20) = 15.46, p = .001,
[[eta].sup.2.sub.p] = .44 for belief in individual success and F(1,20) =
4.95, p = .038, [[eta].sup.2.sub.p] = .20 for prior psi experiences. An
equation including percipient's level of hypnotizability,
dissociation, belief in individual success, and prior psi experiences
accounted for approximately 57% of the total variance in psi z scores,
F(5,20) = 5.26, p = .003. If dissociation, which was the only
nonsignificant predictor, is excluded it yields an equation that
accounts for 51% of the total variance.

Hypnotizability and Being in an Altered State

As Table 1 shows, the PCI scale measuring experience of an altered
state in ganzfeld correlated significantly with beliefs in both the
success of the experiment and individual success, and with dissociation.
Psi z scores correlated strongly with this PCI scale among high
hypnotizables, r(12) = .74, p = .002, but not among lows, r(10) = -.10,
p = .75 (see Figure 2). An r-to-z transformation demonstrated that the
correlations for highs and lows differed significantly (z = 2.37, p =
.018). It is also of interest that there was no correlation between
highs' psi z score and their sense of being in an altered state in
the control condition, r(12) = .13, p = .67. We also tested whether high
hypnotizables' correlation between altered state in ganzfeld and
psi z scores was mediated by expectations. A semipartial correlation,
controlling for the influence of belief in individual success on psi z
score, also yielded a significant relationship between altered state in
ganzfeld and psi z score, sr(11) = .54, p = .020. Inversely, when the
influence of altered state in ganzfeld on psi z score was controlled
for, the semipartial correlation between belief in individual success
and psi z score was nonsignificant, sr(11) = .27, p = .28.

For low hypnotizables, however, it was instead belief in individual
success that significantly predicted psi z score after semipartialing
out the other variable, sr(9) = .66, p = .017, for belief in individual
success; sr(9) = -40, p = .19, for altered state. Finally, for the total
sample, the analogous semipartials with psi z scores yielded only a
significant effect for belief in individual success, sr(23) = .34, p =
.047; altered state, sr(23) = .08, p = .64. Thus, altered statein
ganzfeld and belief in individual success contributed unique variance to
psi z scores, and there was only a clear relationship between
experiencing an altered state and psi performance for high
hypnotizables.

Other Consciousness Variables and the Psi Task

We estimated the correlations between psi z scores and all of the
PCI major dimensions. Except for the altered state dimension already
discussed, these analyses can be considered exploratory. The
correlations between PCI major dimensions and psi z scores are reported
in Table 3. For high hypnotizables, altered experience correlated
positively with psi z scores, whereas there was no significant
correlation between PCI dimensions and psi z scores for low
hypnotizables. Follow-up analysis on the subdimensions of altered
experience for high hypnotizables indicated that altered perception,
r(12) = .65, p = .01, and time sense, r(12) = .60, p = .02, correlated
significantly with psi performance, whereas changed meaning experiences
correlated marginally, r(12) = .50, p = .07, and altered body image was
not significant, r(12) = .33, p = .25. In the total sample there was a
negative correlation between self-awareness and psi z scores. It is also
worth pointing out that although they did not correlate significantly,
various measures of ordinary rational thought (i.e., rationality,
volitional control, memory, internal dialogue) tended to have negative
correlations with psi z scores.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

Discussion

Our first two hypotheses were supported in that both expectations
of success and prior psi experience significantly predicted psi z
scores, but only for percipients, not for agents. Contrary to our third
hypothesis, however, high hypnotizables did not score significantly
higher than low hypnotizables but, after controlling for expectations
and prior psi experiences, actually the opposite. There was no
interaction between dissociation and hypnotizability in terms of
performance on the task. Finally, and of greatest interest, only for
high hypnotizables were there strong positive correlations between
experiencing an altered state, having specific altered experiences, and
psi z scores. Although there was no indication of psi scoring using raw
hits, we found moderate to strong correlations with psi z scores,
strongly suggesting that for process research z scores are more
sensitive.

The positive correlation between percipients' expectations of
success in their own trials and their actual performance was similar in
strength to that reported by Smith et al. (1997). Smith and Savva (2008)
did not find such a correlation in a ganzfeld setting but their
questions concerned ESP beliefs and experiments in a more general sense,
whereas the question by Smith and collaborators was directly related to
the forthcoming task, which has been found to be a better indicator than
a general question (Lawrence, 1993). This may explain why the question
in this study about individual success was significant whereas the more
general one was not.

Percipients who reported having had prior psi experiences performed
better than those who did not. This finding replicates the results
summarized by Storm et al. (2010) that ganzfeld is a favorable condition
for selected participants, including those who report previous psi
experiences. The effect of prior psi experiences in this study was found
for high hypnotizables in particular, not for lows. A direction for
further research would be to pinpoint whether any particular type of psi
experience predicts performance. It might be, for instance, that psi
experiences reported to occur during altered states (e.g., dreams, sleep
onset) are better predictors of performance in a ganzfeld context than
psi experiences that occurred during the ordinary state, at least for
high hypnotizables.

The most puzzling finding was the negative correlation of
hypnotizability and psi z scores, after controlling for prior psi
experiences and expectations. It makes little sense from the
altered-state perspective that low hypnotizables would perform better
than highs in a ganzfeld psi task. Other results indicated, however,
that experiencing an altered state (and some altered experiences) and
reporting prior psi experiences were significant predictors only for
high hypnotizables, but not for lows. These results might be explained
by a possible interaction between dissociation and hypnotizability
(although we did not find a significant interaction in our data). As
Figure 2 illustrates, there were two clusters of high hypnotizables that
scored in different directions depending on whether they experienced an
altered state or not. For the cluster of high hypnotizables with
positive psi z scores, five out of six were high dissociative,
suggesting that a subset of high hypnotizable high dissociatives may be
positive psi-scorers and another subset psi-missers, whereas low
hypnotizables and/or low dissociative may show different patterns. In a
previous study, we were surprised that LD highs performed significantly
below chance (Cardena et al., 2009). LD highs scored noticeably, but not
significantly, below chance in this study as well, and it is noteworthy
that HD, whether high or low hypnotizables, tended to be more successful
in the psi task (see Table 2). Avery speculative hypothesis is that HDs,
regardless of their hypnotizability, are more likely to have had a
history of trauma or abuse and thus may have become more likely to
develop psi abilities in order to avoid further punishment, as we
discussed in a previous paper (Cardena et al., 2009). It may be that
highs who do not experience an altered state, and who may be low
dissociative, tend to psimiss because they feel pressured or start using
rational processes in a psi task, whereas lows in general are only
slightly affected by, or conscious of, psi information. In any event, it
seems worthwhile to continue evaluating the interaction of dissociation
and hypnotizability in future research (cf. Cardena, 2010).

Furthermore, spontaneous comments made during the judging procedure
by HD highs who had positive psi z scores suggest that they based their
clip ratings more on hunches than imagery correspondences between the
target and their mentation. Louisa Rhine (1953) found that most psi
experiences could be categorized, in order of occurrence, as intuitions
(hunches), hallucinations (imagery correspondences), or realistic and
unrealistic dreams, and it may be that individuals with different traits
use hunches and imagery correspondences differentially in psi tasks.
Given that anecdotal psi was a predictor of psi performance for high
hypnotizables, grouping these experiences according to Rhine's
categories may help predict the strategies used during a psi task. It
may be inhibitory to ask participants that have mostly had only psi
hunches to base their rating decisions on imagery correspondences, and
vice versa. More specifically, it seems that LD high hypnotizables may
be more likely to use imagery than their HD counterparts (cf. Terhune
& Cardena, 2010), and it was noticeable that imagery did not relate
to psi z scores in our study. This is an area worth pursuing in the
future.

We found moderate to strong correlations between psi performance
and the PCI dimensions of experiencing an altered state, decreased
self-awareness, and two altered experiences subdimensions (time and
perceptual alterations), with other altered experiences having
nonsignificant small to moderate correlations. Although not significant,
there seemed to be a pattern for ordinary thinking to be negatively
related to psi-hitting. Generally, our results may be the clearest
evidence until now of a relationship between experiencing an altered
state of consciousness and psi-hitting, but only for the select group of
high hypnotizables, who are the people more likely to experience such
alterations. Our study is also consistent with earlier findings showing
a relationship between changes in time perception, perceptual changes,
and decreased self-awareness, and performance in psi tasks (reviewed in
Alvarado, 1998). There was also a hint that not being in an ordinary
rational state may be more conducive to psi hitting, similarly to what
Brugman and others (1924, in Alvarado, 1998) conceptualized as being in
a "passive state." We should remind the reader that the PCI
was administered in a previous ganzfeld session, rather than in the
telepathy one, so our results do not refer directly to the specific
alterations of consciousness during the telepathy session, but to the
participants' previously reported state of consciousness in the
ganzfeld setting. We will conduct a content analysis of the telepathy
session to evaluate more directly the alterations during the telepathy
session itself.

The results have implications for the three hypotheses discussed
earlier, namely the altered state, expectancy, and noise-reduction
hypotheses. In favor of the altered-state hypothesis, there was a strong
correlation between reporting an altered state overall, altered
experiences, and performance, even after controlling for expectations.
However, this was only evident for high hypnotizables, not for lows. The
benefit of ganzfeld as an ASC-inducing procedure might therefore be
restricted to only a subgroup of the general population. A study that
includes medium hypnotizables would be a welcomed contribution to this
research. The results also provided support for the specific expectancy
effect of believing that the percipient will be successful in the
experiment. The expectancyperformance correlation was independently
significant for both high and low hypnotizables. The correlation was
also significant even after controlling for reporting an altered state.
The data suggest that expectancy and altered states contribute unique
variance to performance. As for the noise reduction model, the present
study was admittedly limited in addressing it, but it is worth pointing
out that the PCI dimension that probably most closely addresses
noise-reduction, attention, did not correlate with psi.

Our study had a number of limitations, foremost the small n,
necessitated by the considerable time demands of our procedure. The fact
that, despite the consequent small statistical power, we had a number of
our hypotheses confirmed and with a sizeable amount of variance
explained suggests that the variables we used are definitely worth
investigating further in studies with a larger sample, as we are
currently in the process of doing. Another limitation when evaluating
the effects of hypnotizability is that we did not measure the whole
range of hypnotizability. This restricted variability prevents the
detection of possible nonlinear relationships and may inflate effect
sizes (cf. Lynn, Kirsch, Knox, Fassler, & Lilienfeld, 2007).
Nonetheless, the importance of greater alterations in consciousness
among highs is consistent with research using the whole gamut of
hypnotizability (Cardena et al., 2007). It will also be worthwhile to
compare the effect of specific hypnotic suggestions on psi zscores in
the future. It may be criticized that we dichotomized dissociation
scores instead of using actual scores, but this strategy is defensible
considering the non-normal distribution of the measure we used (see
Cardena, 2008). A third limitation is that we used the results of a
previous session in ganzfeld and related it to the psi score in the
telepathy section because this study was part of a larger project.
Naturally it would be better to measure any alterations of consciousness
in the actual psi-task session. Having said that, the fact that
experiencing an altered state in the control condition did not relate to
psi z scores substantiates the claim that the measure of altered state
during the first ganzfeld session was a valid measure of such
alterations in the second session. Another limitation is that we mostly
measured variables rather than manipulating them, thus making any causal
statement questionable, and our measure of psi was indirect, based on
the individuals' judgment of the target and decoys. Finally, we did
not have different sets of experimenters, so we cannot disentangle to
what extent the possible psi effects can be attributed to the
participants, the experimenters, or an interaction of both.

This study yielded several moderate to strong predictors of psi z
scores. First, percipients' expectations of success in their own
trials correlated positively with performance. Second, percipients who
reported previous psi experiences performed significantly better than
those who did not report them. These two effects were not evident for
agents. Third, the general sense of being in an altered state, and of
having particular alterations in experience, correlated moderately to
strongly with psi z scores, but only for high hypnotizables. Although
opaque, it also seems that dissociation plays a role in psi performance.
Overall, a positive relationship between psi z scores and belief that
one will succeed in the study, previous psi experiences, and
experiencing alterations of consciousness in a ganzfeld setting by a
select group were clearly supported by our study.

References

Alvarado, C. S. (1998). ESP and altered states of consciousness: An
overview of conceptual and research trends.Journal of Parapsychology,
62, 27-63.

Baars, B. (2001). In the theatre of consciousness. Oxford, UK:
Oxford University Press.

Harley, T., & Matthews, G. (1987). Cheating, psi, and the
appliance of science: A reply to Blackmore. Journal of the Society for
Psychical Research, 54, 199-207.

Honorton, C. (1969). A combination of techniques for the separation
of high- and low-scoring ESP subjects: Experiments with hypnotic and
waking-imagination instructions. Journal of the American Society for
Psychical Research, 63, 69-82.

Center for Research on Consciousness and Anomalous Psychology
(CERCAP) Department of Psychology, Lund University Lund, Sweden
david.marcusson-clavertz@psychology.lu.se or
etzel.cardena@psychology.lu.se

(1) We are grateful for the financial support of the
Parapsychological Association Research Endowment to the first author and
of the Parapsychological Foundation to the second author.